Last night, I was admiring all these slightly cropped, loose ripped jeans online and contemplating adding to my denim collection. You know I’m trying to cut down on mindless shopping, so luckily it didn’t take me long to decide I could modify something I already owned to fit my vision instead. This DIY was free, super easy and I had nothing to lose since I’ve only worn these thrifted jeans a handful of times.

When I tried to distress my own jeans as a teenager, I used a cheese grater, sand paper and bleach and it did not go well. Thanks to YouTube, I learned last night making the rips you see above is easy – just use scissors to cut horizontally at the top and bottom of where you want the shreds to be and pull out the blue vertical threads with tweezers. It might take time to pull out the first few threads but after that it gets easier to see them. Once you’re done, you are left with the white horizontal threads only which gives the appearance of most store bought ripped jeans.

I would recommend starting small and trying on the pants as you go. You can always make a rip bigger, but can’t take it back once it’s there! It also really helped me to find photos of jeans I loved to get a good idea of where I wanted the holes to be and how large I should go. Experimenting on a low stakes piece (not your favourite jeans) means it’s not the end of the world if you don’t love the outcome.

I cut the hem off these pants too as they were super long and I was after a more cropped look. I actually cut them up a bit more after I took these photos since they tend to wear lower on the hips as the day goes on. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, and I love playing around with an all around loose look like this one – so comfy for the long weekend. What do you think?

Jeans: Cheap Monday similar with DIY distressing, similar pre-ripped here, Sweater: Zara, similar, Booties: Ecco (on sale!), Bag: Chloe